Alicia Voll

Fourth-year pharmacy student Alicia Voll enjoyed her service-learning experience working with Auberle, an organization that serves troubled children and families, because it gave her the chance to work in a neighborhood that she had not been exposed to before.

Alicia’s project was to give a presentation to thirty high school students in Homestead about careers as pharmacy technicians. Although her first choice was to work with younger children, Alicia was surprised at how much she liked working with high school students, and how responsive they were to the Duquesne students, who they saw as both peers and role models. “I think it was good for the students to see people around their age who were going to school and learning to become a professional.”

Alicia believes her service-learning project gave her the opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds, which is something she will do in her career as a pharmacist. “Working in a community pharmacy, you see so many different kinds of people; service-learning took away many of my pre-judgments … wherever I work, I definitely want to make an impact on every different kind of person that I can—service-learning helped me see that.”

IMPACTING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

At the high school, her group gave the students information about what it takes to become a pharmacy technician, and was pleased that the students were interested in their presentation. One boy in particular kept raising his hand to ask questions: “I could tell he was really engaged and really interested in what we had to say. He wanted to know about us personally, what we’re doing.”

Alicia believes her group might have even made a small contribution to these students’ lives. “If we impacted one out of the thirty of them, that’s great. Even if they don’t want to go into pharmacy [as a career], maybe this will at least help them to think about their future.”

WELL-ROUNDED INDIVIDUALS

Alicia believes her coursework at Duquesne prepared her for her service-learning experience. “We definitely had to use group and organizational skills, present ourselves in a professional way—all the stuff we learned during our years at Duquesne.”

To Alicia, service-learning is an important part of Duquesne’s curriculum. “Service-learning is something good that Duquesne provides for students … we get caught up in school work and don’t get to experience other things, but service-learning gives you that opportunity.”

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